Nurtury Early Education’s Post

💡 How this entrepreneur Converted an issue into an opportunity, now built multi-million dollar company? ⏩ Meet the man, Brett Wigdortz OBE, who is a successful entrepreneur in the United Kingdom. He identified a problem, understood it, and worked diligently to resolve it. What issue? ❎ Brett noticed that early childhood education was in crisis; families were unable to get attention for their children, and children were starting their education without the basic emotional, social, and educational skills that are necessary to be ready for school. ⏩ Brett says, "The first year of a child’s #development are absolutely crucial for shaping their long-term educational trajectory. Early years educators play an enormous role in this, but #astronomical costs and provider shortages have robbed too many families of access to high-quality care." Furthermore, he was determined to solve this critical problem and decided to launch his new startup. ✅ In 2018, Brett launched tiney with Edd Read and 🚀 John Newbold in order to address the growing demand for high-quality, easily accessible early childhood education throughout #England. What does Tiney? ⏩ Tiney finds, trains, and assists "micro-entrepreneurs" who wish to become retrained childminders and start childcare facilities at home. They started Tiney with a mission to enable affordable #childcare for parents, high-quality early education for children, and amazing careers for childminders. Do you know? ✅ Recently, in order to grow the business and unlock the potential of every child, London-based tech-enabled childcare startup tiney.co secured €8.3 million. 💡 This entrepreneur's heart didn’t ignore the issue, saw this as an opportunity and built a multi-million dollar enterprise solving an issue. To share your startup story write us on - [email protected] #Eustartup #edtech #tiney #Europeanstartup #childcare #edtechstartup #Enterprenureship 

So thankful this holiday season for founders serving parents and their children. In celebration of our founders, and all those serving young families (in most cases, while juggling raising children themselves) we have created an intro to the ParentTech sector, along with a market map to support parents and investors in learning of their work. We'd love if you'd give it a read, a share, or contribute other startups we should add in! Happy thanksgiving to you all, ~~~~~~~ Medium post introducing ParentTech: https://lnkd.in/ddR2S64y Link to access the market map: https://lnkd.in/ets3JAME

Clayful is a #website that connects students aged eight to 18 with a mental #healthprofessional in 60 seconds when they need it. Google Latino Founders Fund, Reach Capital, Ovo Fund, Common Sense Ventures, Charter School Growth #fund, and Wisdom Ventures were among the #investors who contributed $7 million to the firm. Clayful seeks to "ensure every student gets a trusted, certified coach in their pockets and/or school device," according to Maria Barrera, #chiefexecutiveofficer of Clayful. "Our design is based on meeting kids where they are at in and outside of school, online and on their schedule." When Barrera read a New York Times piece about increased suicide among eight-year-olds, he realised the country's #mentalhealth system was failing. Barrera discovered that schools are access sites for kids' mental health services, and #counsellors had neither the time nor the capacity to address the expanding number of kids in need of help after speaking with teachers, kids, parents, and counsellors before to establishing the #programme. "There were too many children and not enough providers." Those in severe need of assistance were being left behind," the CEO explained. According to recent study, the American School Counsellor Association recommends at least one school counsellor for every 250 students, yet there is only one school counsellor for every 444 children. Clayful co-founders Barrera and Pelochino founded the edtech firm two years ago to address the counsellor shortage and suit students' requirements. Both had previously worked at Nearpod and had a combined 20 years of expertise in the #educationindustry and edtech. Pelochino, a former educator, has worked as a #consultant for Google and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Clayful, which tested its on-demand mental health coaching platform through #pilot programmes in spring 2022, now collaborates with over 50 schools nationwide, providing real-time #communication between students and mental health specialists within 60 seconds, distinguishing itself from competitors like Daybreak and Cartwheel. Users receive on-demand, chat-based support but do not meet in-person coaches because the firm emphasises aiding students in real time when they need to work through daily issues, regulate emotions, and solve problems. Its platform supports 133 languages to provide inclusivity and accessibility for diverse populations, and it is absolutely free for kids, with school districts covering the costs. Clayful claims that increasing involvement in #coaching chat programmes throughout the 2022-2023 school year correlates with significantly higher attendance rates. https://lnkd.in/fzpnPPW #clayful #students #wellbeing #education #startup #mentalwellness #edtech #startupfunding #healthcare #technology #innovation #wellbeing 💛 Clayful

The first time I saw Eurokids was when my niece (now 16) attended their preschool. The second time was sometime in 2013, a massive row between few parents and Euroschool over fee hike had resulted in a police complaint. I was covering the parents protest. Between the two times I had seen Eurokids, a lot had changed. And it has kept changing. For starters, Eurokids is now Lighthouse Learning, a conglomerate of sorts which adds 500 kindergartens & at least 5 schools a year. It's one of the few school chain's which took PE investment more than a decade ago & each investor has more than doubled their money The last transaction was global investment firm buying a 92percent stake in the school chain for $200mn in 2019. Then Eurokids had 1100 preschools, now they have 1600 . KKR which turned Eurokids from a pre-K, K-12 chain to a conglomerate with several brands, is now seeking $1bn for its stake. As PE firms capital supercharged Eurokids growth, they also brought a corporate culture to the schools. Business managers watching toplines & bottomless, the tiniest drop in enrolments or fee defaults. Eurokids rushed to scale & make profits bt what changes took place in schools? Collecting fees is important to keep balance sheets "balanced" but did this imbalance the equation with parents? Or as financial ratings suggest, it played a huge part in driving profits. And if PE firms are so good for growth,why are other schools shy of it? Why resist corporatisation if it helps to drive enrolments and quality? I tried to answer some of these questions and track Eurokids exponential growth in my story for The Ken https://lnkd.in/dzhxXjg4

🌟 Pitching for a fellowship with a baby on board? Challenge accepted! 🌟 Today was a whirlwind as I geared up for a crucial pitch in a fellowship program where I've proudly reached the finalist stage. But you know how life throws surprises your way? A calendar glitch meant a childcare hiccup during the pitch. I thought, "Fine, let's align it with her nap time." But babies, well, they have their own schedules! Just 3 minutes before my pitch, my little one decided it was time to join the action, officially making today 'Pitch with your Baby' day. Amidst the unexpected, we managed. Sure, there was a bit of fluster, but I quickly shifted my perspective. This, right here, is the reality of being a working parent. It's a juggle, an adventure, and sometimes, the best-laid plans simply adapt to our little one's timing. It reminded me—this program would be fortunate to have me and the incredible journey we're crafting with xHood. Turning lemons into a lemon drop, today's experience reaffirmed the resilience and adaptability that define us as parents and entrepreneurs. Crossing fingers for some exciting news to share with you all in December! Stay tuned for updates on this thrilling journey. 🚀 #WorkingParentLife #Entrepreneurship #xHoodJourney #PitchWithYourBaby #BuildInPublic

#Earlychildhooddevelopment centres are widely regarded as being some of the most important #buildingblocks of #society. With greater access to working #capital and #funding, #entrepreneurs in this sector have a unique opportunity to make a #positiveimpact within their #communities.

"Once we start looking at early learning centres as social enterprises, we can unlock a triple-layered impact for our country and its youngest generation: small business development; employment opportunities; and improved education for all children" - Tracey Chambers, CEO and Co-Founder of the non-profit organisation Grow ECD. The Early Childhood Development sector holds immense potential in the realm of economic and employment opportunities, but it needs to receive more attention and investment to be able to thrive. SmartStart's model is designed to help people, primarily women, in under-resourced communities realise their potential in the early learning sector. Our five-day training, and support of home-based provisioning, makes the sector more accessible, subsequently bringing the power of early learning to more children in need. https://lnkd.in/d8jmNjaV

In #SouthAfrica, only 40% of children under four years attend Early Childhood Development centers, despite the fact that #ECD is essential for literacy, numeracy, and socio-emotional learning. Through our partnership with Kaizenvest, USAID CATALYZE is supporting Grow ECD to fund their new accelerator program, which supports women-led, micro-ECD centers to access financing to grow their centers and improve development outcomes for children who attend them. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gZbDHffj #EarlyChildhoodDevelopment #BlendedFinance #Education Palladium: Make It Possible

Hi all, We (at Wevise) are looking to connect with other organizations supporting underserved populations to get into tech (or go further in tech). There is a lot of pressure on organizations running programs to layer a mentoring program on top of their primary focus. While this comes from a good place (who doesn’t agree mentoring is important??), a mentoring program isn’t nearly as easy to run as it seems on the surface. It’s labor intensive and, being full of humans, complicated! For often short-staffed nonprofits, this additional program expectation can cause burnout and frustration, with rarely any funding for tools to improve it. We’ve built a free platform that allows organizations to sign up their students/beneficiaries as mentees, encourage their alumni and corporate volunteers to register as mentors, and benefit from matching that supports their mentees finding mentors with the same lived experiences. We’re currently at the MVP stage and are looking for early org partners to help us determine how to build out our platform to better serve them. We’ve got some ideas but would love to grow with a few select partners (...to start). If you’re interested in chatting, please contact me–even if you’re not sure and just want to give some advice, I would love to hear from you!

What a nugget today. This message is all for my fellow founders, those chasing a dream, for those who may have lost faith. In my first startup called Mazu we traversed the globe in classrooms, offices, parent meetings for over 10 years. In 2009 I was concerned about what would happen to kids in these spaces. Almost everyone we encountered did not believe it. I had a school superintendent basically kick us out of a meeting…we raised the flags. My hard working team came behind me. They tried too. We daid there could be a better way. Most parents we met turned a blind eye or felt defeated. We met with governments, nonprofits, you name it…we asked for legislation to change. Living in Silicon Vsllet I was kicked out of so many meetings for asking questions:( In 2019 we closed our doors. It was devastating. Miracles of knowing that despite timing being off, your vision was not wrong. You were on the right path. Keep going. Then one day years later…teachers take a brave stance! To the parents in Ontario…get behind this. As a tech founder who has studied the impacts of digital the last 15 years…all these companies knew what they were doing. I was in the room in 2012 in Silicon Valley…they knew then. The tech was engineered to cause harm. They had no pressure to change. It was clear in 2009 prior to mobile phone explosion. Tech can be built for good. Well done Ontario! https://lnkd.in/g6mt6Hkk